Samson’s Take: When religion threatens peace, sanity must prevail

A situation that could have plunged this country into serious trouble, threatening Ghana’s long-standing peaceful coexistence between Christians and Muslims, has thankfully been brought under control.

We therefore have reason to take a title in “When Sanity Prevails, and the Cost of Religiosity.”

We must pause, take a deep breath and offer unreserved praise to the National Chief Imam, his leadership, and members of the clergy for intervening to douse what was fast becoming a dangerous fire.

When the unacceptable video surfaced showing a pastor being slapped while in police custody, public outrage was swift, righteous and justified.

The Minister for the Interior rightly condemned the act, and the police moved to arrest the perpetrator.

But in a country where religious tensions can easily be ignited by the actions of a few, it took the swift, mature and statesmanlike leadership of the Chief Imam, together with Muslim and Christian leaders, to pull us back from the brink and preserve our cherished tradition of peaceful coexistence.

For that leadership, we owe them a debt of gratitude.

The Chief Imam has shown time and again that he is godly and, indeed, God-sent.

Yet, as we celebrate this peaceful resolution, we cannot ignore the mirror this entire incident holds up to our society.

It forces us to confront once again what our brand of incurable religiosity is doing to us.

Being religious is not the same as being spiritually pure. Otherwise, this country would not be a place where corruption thrives as we see it.

How did we arrive at a point where a police facility — a place where a person is held in custody, and which should be a sanctuary of law and order — becomes the scene of a physical assault, and where religious zeal so quickly threatens to fracture our national peace?

We parade ourselves as a deeply religious nation, filling churches and mosques to capacity.

Yet our public spaces are too often governed by intolerance, lawlessness and a performance of faith that lacks moral substance.

If our faith only serves to incite outrage, provoke violence or demand tribal alignment under the guise of religion, then we are merely practising ritual without righteousness.

True spirituality does not seek vengeance, nor does it hide behind physical abuse. It demands law, justice, restraint and mutual respect.

The Chief Imam and the clergy demonstrated what true spiritual leadership looks like, choosing peace over provocation and nationhood over sectarian pride.

It is now up to us — the rest of us — to let our faith reflect in our civic discipline and ensure that our religiosity ceases to become a liability to our national peace.

And that is my take.

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DISCLAIMER: The Views, Comments, Opinions, Contributions and Statements made by Readers and Contributors on this platform do not necessarily represent the views or policy of Multimedia Group Limited.